Few things in life stress me out.
Actually I just said that for laughs. Anybody who has been around me for more than 5 minutes is well aware that I get stressed out easily.
Which is why I laughed yesterday when the Dr. told me I had a lot of tension in my shoulders and neck and wanted to know if I ever get stressed about anything.
I literally laughed out loud.
Well as I have mentioned before I have started cooking a lot more since I got married. And for the most part I like it. Even if I have had a few mishaps, such as the
sausage balls incident.
(which the verdict is still out as to whether I was wrong or not)One thing I have never mentioned is that, before I got married I had never browned meat.
Never in my life.
I had watched my mom do it more times than I can even count, but I had never taken part in the actual browning.
So for whatever reason, browning meat completely stresses me out and causes me to have mild panic attacks.
There have been known incidents of me breaking out in tears in the kitchen and having to be 'sent to my room' to calm down so that my lovely husband can complete the task himself.
I am not a good decision maker, and having to decide whether the meat 'looks' done causes me to go into a tizzy.
I mean what the heck classifies meat as done?
I know, I know, NOT PINK, but my friends, it is not that easy.
This morning Luke and I decided that we were going to have Mexican enchiladas for dinner (which, as two people who complain about gaining weight, I can honestly say we eat those waaaaay too often, but they are so dang good).
He then informed me that he would be home late because he had worship band practice.
I could feel my heart rate gaining speed, my blood pressure start to rise, and my legs started to feel weak.
I tried to regain my composure and very calmly asked him "you mean I have to brown the meat all by myself???"
That was when he told me that after 11 months of marriage my meat paranoia was no longer cute but actually it was starting to get a bit annoying.
Maybe I
am causing him to lose his hair?
Anyways, I seriously thought all day about the meat that I had waiting for me and continued to assure myself that I would be ok and there was no need to freak out.
After work, I came home and very calmly put the meat in the pan and started heating it up.
I was on a roll, everything was going good.
And then I lost it.
I don't know when or how it happened but somewhere between raw meat and black meat that resembles popcorn kernels I completely and utterly lost it.
There was no crying, but there was freaking out.
In the middle of the cooking I thought my meat looked done, but for fear of poisoning myself and my hubby I took a piece of meat, broke it up, took a picture of it with my phone, and emailed it to my mom.
I then called her and told her to check her mail and asked her if she thought the meat looked done.
To which she responded, "What kind of meat is that"
iPhones can be used to help guide you to a destination, help connect you to the world through facebook and twitter apps, and according to the commercials even help find you an apartment to live in, but iPhones should never be used to help classify whether a meat is fully cooked over a hundred some-odd miles.
I tried to explain to my mom what the meat looked liked, then she told me that I am really weird about meat and its probably fine.
I may or may not have completely freaked out at that time and cooked my meat to the point that some may call burnt but I like to call: Now-I-Know-For-Sure-Its-Done.
I have eaten burnt meat so much I have actually forgotten what non-burnt hamburger meat tastes like.
You mean hamburger meat isn't supposed to be crunchy?
So, at the risk of hearing crickets chirp at the end of this post I am asking, does anybody else have a crazy fear of browning meat? Or anything else related to cooking? Perhaps boiling eggs startles you to no end.
Don't think I didn't call my mom like 3 times the first time I boiled eggs.
It was so nerve-wracking.
And don't even get me started on chicken. That poultry could very well send me to the crazy home.
Can anybody relate?